Case Study: Carbon Link
Location: Australia
Investment type: Investment and philanthropic capital
Founded in 2007, Carbon Link has been working to develop an end-to-end service for farmers to engage with soil carbon farming initiatives through their NetCarbon Producer Program.
The program is designed to provide all the support and tools needed to measure, manage, monitor and monetise farmers’ soil carbon in a simplified, streamlined process.
The company has developed precision technology and processes to ensure accuracy and effectiveness for measurement and monitoring including:
- NetScan: Combines next-generation sensors and advanced spatial analysis to deliver low-cost, high-quality soil condition measurement. It has been designed to predict carbon at depth with great accuracy, helping to guide farmer decision-making around market participation.
- Netspatial: Combining geospatial technology, advanced analytical methods, state-of-the-art machine learning and geostatistical algorithms and 3D visualisation to develop accurate and precise soil carbon farming project mapping and field sampling sites.
Carbon Link now has over 1.5 million ha of expressions of interest from right across Australia, 700,000 hectares of that are now being worked up, assessed and developed into projects, with 100,000ha already registered on the market, and the team is experiencing increasing demand and interest from farmers and landholders.
The Carbon Link team is also thinking carefully about how to ensure participation is accessible for farmers and generative of long-term impacts. They have developed a co-investment model which brings investors into the picture to pay for the baselining and upfront costs for farmers to register and develop a carbon farming project, which can be prohibitive for individual landholders. A 7-10 year investment horizon (or more depending on the amount invested and the investor's appetite for patient capital provision) provides an ROI to investors through the carbon credit income, while the farmer also receives an agreed-on portion of the credit income.
The team is also looking at ways this upfront investment can be extended to provide:
- Holistic education programs to develop the carbon farming skills and knowledge of farmers and ensure the longevity of the impact of the carbon farming project.
- Upfront financing costs for infrastructure development that may be required to transition to regenerative management practices.
This case study is an extract from Regenerating Investment in Food and Farming: A Roadmap.